YA Reading Response "It's Kind of A Funny Story"

From many stories and past experiences we can learn that different people that we meet can impact us, sometimes these impacts are positive and sometimes negative. One book that can teach us about how different people have impacts on us is It’s Kind of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini it is about a teenager named Craig Gilner who has just go into an incredible high school, but when he gets there he faces many issues in his life, (drugs, excessive homework, and he’s not eating) but in his life he has people who are there for him and either makes him strive to be the best, or people who are trying to harm him and make him uncomfortable.

Some things that affect Craig negatively are the people who he calls “Friends” and his school

life, these two things inflict things that are really harm Craig as a person. His “friends” are Nia and Aaron, who are dating,  and they are mean and they get Craig to start doing drugs. One example of them giving him drugs is the day that they all get their invitation letter to the high school that they want to go to and Aaron has a party at his house, and Aaron tells him just to do it once. “Smoke. Celebrate.’/ I stopped. / ‘If any time is the time it’s now.’/ I nodded./… He explained how you ‘have to take the smoke into your lungs, not your stomach - don’t swallow it Craig, that’s how hits get lost’ - and how to let it go as slowly as you could through your mouth or nose. The key was to hold it in as long as possible.  But you didn’t want to hold it too long. then you coughed.“ This is an example of how Aaron isn’t only getting him addicted to a dangerous drug, but also peer pressuring him to do something that he doesn’t want to do, and this is just horrible to watch. Another thing that impacts him negatively is his school. Besides the fact that everyone hates school, his school is really hurting him. School is making him depressed, and from the very first page he tells us that he doesn’t enjoy talking because he wants to kill himself. Then later on he tells us “I don’t like to smoke pot ,but then I do smoke it and I get depressed.” In the last piece of evidence we found out that he started smoking when he got into high school, due to the fact that he has so much homework he has continued to “smoke pot” and it’s just making him so depressed to the level that he wants to kill himself. So this is how we can see that in Craig Gilner has some challenges that make his life more difficult.

Although Craig has all of this negativity in his life there are a few things that help him in his life to make him feel better like his mother and Noelle, a girl that Craig meets after he puts himself into a psychiatric hospital before he's about to kill himself. His mother makes him feel better because she sweet and helpful. One of the things that Craig likes to do is draw maps, and he started drawing maps when he was younger, and when he couldn't draw them perfectly he got very upset and had a temper tantrum. His mother told him "Craig' she sighed, looked at me. 'I have an idea. Instead of spending your time trying to trace maps of Manhattan, why don't you make your own maps of imaginary places?" This is an example of his mother being very kind to him because it hard to explain to a child that human error is inevitable when it comes to drawing something that was made computer generated. So here is mother was doing small Craig a favor, by giving something that he enjoys doing which is very hard to do all considering that he's so depressed that he won't even eat. Another person that makes him feel better about staying on the face of the earth is a girl named Noelle, she was put in the psychiatric hospital because she cut her face in odd contortions. In the hospital Craig and Noelle have become very close to the point in which they start dating. By Noelle dating Craig doesn’t only make him happy because he’s liked, but he also he had watched his friend date someone for 2 years and he’d been the third wheel, but now he doesn’t have to be so lonely. Noelle also gives him life advice, when she catches Craig making out with Nia, Aarons ex-girlfriend, she gets really upset. And when Craig apologizes she says that saying sorry won’t make it better, but you have to compliment them, and because Craig has never learned to be nice to someone (because in the book he has a lot of of trouble complementing people) and now Noelle is giving him this piece of knowledge that will help Craig a better person.

Although Craig Gilner has many problems in his life the amount of nice things and people that live around him should make happier than the things that brings him down. So in our life there are probably things that keep us down, but there are people in this world that make us feel better. And those people that make us happy will make sure that we aren’t put down by those people that don’t make us happy. In Craig’s case because he had his mother and Noelle he was able to not as depressed, without them in his life then he might have killed himself and then he would have hurt more people than him hurting himself.

Argument Essay #1

Should we allow should we let higher authority such as administers, principles, and bosses look at our social media accounts? I believe that they shouldn’t be allowed to look at the social media accounts because someone shouldn’t be penalized for something and when they look at the accounts its an invasion of property if the higher authority is looking for something about you that isn’t right. From reading the article “Guess Who’s Looking at Your Facebook Page” by Alessandra Potenza it tells us about the different situations where the higher authority people penalized others from what they say on the social media. Another thing to keep in mind is if someone did post their opinion about something it’s a legitimate option that they were trying to be funny or it was a joke.

Sometimes when people are upset about an event in their life, they might reflect on it by posting about it on their social media account. A similar situation happened to a woman who lives in Findlay, Ohio. She was fired from her job because she complained about how little the tip she received day prior was, when her boss found out that next week she was immediately fired. This punishment was acted very quick and is incredibly unfair. She could have been given the opportunity to not make the same mistake again and still work for them. Because she had this thought and shared it to the public she was punished, the odds that even the boss thinks “wow business was very slow today, I think we should have made more money” the boss is having the same thought as her but they won’t get penalized for it and this woman was fired for thinking it and posting it which is unfair. There has been a pole that says that 90% of recruits for jobs look at the peoples profiles on the social media. But the problem with this method is that if you see one thing that might make you think differently about them then they won’t get the job. There might be a person who doesn’t use the social media websites and is a total liar and plagiarizer and when the recruits look for that persons behind story then they will find out that based on their social media profile (which doesn’t exists) they have nothing bad. And they end up hiring the person who’s a horrible person while the other person could be the best. The consequence that could come from not saying the right thing is some immense to what the actual crime, and social media is making people judgement very unclear.

Another thing to consider about higher authority being able to look at the profiles is that it’s an invasion of privacy. When a teacher follows a student because they are friends and they like to talk to each other is very unusual, but it’s possible. But if a teacher follows a student for the purpose of checking on a student that’s just inappropriate.  Woman named Kimberly Barnhart has “friended” of her students on face book. she said she did this to “Go beyond privacy walls.” This is very weird if a teacher has the intention of doing this, and very possibly if a student asks “Why are you following me?” If the teacher doesn’t tell the student the real reason why, then they are lying to the students and making the student question and make them curious more than needed to be. When someone posts something and a lot of people read it they will be very confused, because it mostly likely means something to the person. But one person might read it and think that they are being insulting, and while this person is misinterpreting the situation the  other person will get in trouble. When it was all over a joke.

From looking at these examples we can see that when a higher authority looks at the social media posts and updates its not only peculiar that you can be penalized for posting a comment that doesn’t deem to appropriate to the grader, but it’s also just an invasion of privacy. From this we can learn that when you want to talk about things on your social media you should think about who you ”friend” or who you let follow you on social media and also about what you post, you should think “Could this comment be thought as ‘insulting’?” If it is inappropriate then you should refrain from posting it to reduce the amount of potential trouble you could get from someones misinterpretations.

Faithful Elephants Essay

There are many stories that teach us that sometimes when you love something you will do whatever you think is best for them . The story Faithful Elephants: A Story of Animals People and War by Yukio Tsuchiya is one example that can help us see this common message. Faithful Elephants is a story told from the perspective of a person who is listening to a story, it is a flash back to World War Two when bombs were dropping constantly on Tokyo, Japan where the Ueno Zoo is. The characters of this story are elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly, who are forced to be killed by the zoo keepers because the if the bombs did attack the zoo it could destroy the cages the all the dangerous animals could be running around the streets of Tokyo.

One example of the story showing us that one might do anything to protect something they love is when they need the elephants to die. If the elephants don't die and their cages break open they could be extremely traumatized because they are used to listening to humans all their life. John was the first of the elephants to be killed. They killed him by giving him poisoned potatoes. The trainers obviously didn't want to kill him because he was a smart elephant, but it wouldn't have been safe if he went loose around the street of Tokyo. After John the other two elephants had to die because all the other animals had already died. "Then it was Tonky's and Wanly's turn to die. These two had always gazed at the people with such loving eyes. They were sweet and gentle-hearted... The keeper stopped feeding Tonky and Wanly. As the days passed the elephants became thinner and thinner, weaker and weaker... The once big, strong elephants had become a sad shape." If the employee is feeling that the elephant is in a "sad shape" that shows us what the storyteller is actually feeling about the elephant, because sad is their own opinion. This is showing us that this the, starving the elephants really makes them upset and devastated.

Another of this story showing us that you would do anything for someone you would love is they try to save the elephants and make sure they don't die. During this point in the story one of the elephants have already been killed from starvation and they love the other elephants more and they don't want to kill them. "They thought of sending them to the zoo in Sendai, far north of Tokyo." This is an example of of them trying to help the elephants because sending them away the trainers won't be able to see the elephants for a while, but it's better than killing them because they will never be able to see them again. Towards the end of the story when the elephants get extremely weak they do a trick that in the past had worked to get them food. One of the trainers can't stand to look at the elephants in their weak shriveled form and this feeds the elephants. "The trainer could stand it no longer. 'Oh, Tonky! Oh, Wanly!' He wailed and dashed to the food shed. He carried food and pails of water to them and threw it at their feet. 'Here!' he said, sobbing, and clung to their thin legs. 'Eat your food! Please drink. Drink your water!'/ All the other trainers pretended not to see what the other trainer had done. No one said a word. The director of the zoo just sat very still, biting his lip and gazing at the top of his desk." This is showing how everyone wanted the elephants to live and because of this nobody did anything about the trainer feeding the elephants, they also wanted to see the elephants get out of the war alive because they loved the elephants so much. This is how the author shows us that the trainers go against what they are supposed to do just to save the elephants.

From reading this story we can learn that you should do anything for the people you love no matter who it hurts. This theme doesn't only occur in Faithful Elephants, it also occurs in one of Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer's. In the book Edward, Bella's boyfriend, believes that she will be safer if he leaves her for a while. Neither of them want each other to leave, but Edward leaves to make sure his loved one is safe. And this theme doesn't only occur in two stories it happens to be in a lot of other stories as well. But Yukio Tsuchiya shows this to us by us having to kill loved ones for their own safety and even helping them when they shouldn't is showing us how it's important to something's are and we have to do what's best for everyone.